This Friday 17th of January at 2.30pm, curator Mark O'Gorman will facilitate an intimate walkthrough of the exhibition 'God', which marks the closing of the exhibition. The Gallery is situated at 21-25 Arran St E, Smithfield, Dublin 7, D07 YY97.
'God' by Bea McMahon and Conor McFeely, marks the pair's first collaboration. Read on to find out more about the artists, their process, and the exhibition, from Mark O'Gorman:
Initially introduced by the Curated Visual Arts Award from The Arts Council of Ireland and Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 2007, Conor McFeely and Bea McMahon exhibited their works in Dublin and Derry under the curation of Mike Nelson. Although they did not get to know each other well at the time, this shared experience has become a reference point for them both. My fundamental interest in making exhibitions is bringing artists together to develop work in conversation. Artists that don’t know each other personally, have a distance between them geographically, and share concerns within their practice that have the potential to collide. The act of getting to know one another is integral to this process; the resulting entanglement holds greater value than the physical work produced.
I arranged a series of visits that facilitated introductions and created points of contact between the artists. One of note was an informal hunt for William Rowan Hamilton, the renowned Irish mathematician, astronomer, and physicist whose resting place we thought was in the crypts at St. Michan's Church in Dublin. It wasn't. Alexander Grothendieck was another mathematician involved in Bea and Conor’s early conversations and sparked a mutual curiosity early on centering around mathematics, anarchy and God.
Grothendieck believed that mathematics and God are mutually exclusive. His retreat from academia into mysticism in the 1970s continues to ignite conversations between both artists. Further references for the artists span Gilles Châtelet’s work on spatial understanding, number stations, azimuths, celestial bodies, bats, Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, Alexander Grothendieck's Life and Anarchist Origins as recounted by Winfried Scharlau, Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy, Gaudete by Ted Hughes, Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z. (Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism), Stephan Wolfram’s concept of the Ruliad and the dream recordings of Dion McGregor.
Bea and Conor share an interest in finding or happening upon materials that stimulate new ideas. These material sources may arise not only from our perceived physical reality (every species, from ants to mammals, perceives the universe in a way that eludes all others) but also from altered states of consciousness, whether through sleep or sleeplessness. A video developed for the exhibition represents a dive into insomniac ruminations. Like Grothendieck, dreams have been a recurring meeting point for the artists. Some works in the exhibition have been extracted directly from the artist's dreams and made physical in The Gallery. For instance, one sculpture references a dream in which a table was laden with fishy snacks. Alexander Grothendieck was believed to view dreams not merely as random mental events but as a means to interface with God and get to know yourself, offering glimpses into reality beyond rationality. GOD seeks to observe the backgrounds that appear in dreams. Backgrounds that shift seamlessly from one scene to the next, setting the stage for whatever reflections come along.
________________________________________________________________________
Proudly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council.